Observations Technology has not had a game-changing impact on policing in terms of dramatically altering the philosophies and strategies used for preventing crime, responding to crime, or improving public safety. The bottom line of technology? It’s very labor intensive for it to be effective. Author Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr. Thirty-five years of speaking for national […]

Colleagues: This is the first police body camera evaluation offered by the Department of Justice’s Crime Solutions.Gov. See Body Worn Camera Evaluation. Evidence Rating: Promising – One study Date: This profile was posted on November 28, 2016 Program Summary This program equips individual police officers with body-worn cameras to record police encounters during shifts. The program […]

Facebook, Crime and West Virginia Having been in the criminal justice system for close to 50 years, I find fascination with offbeat aspects of crime and justice in America. With the current contentious political debate raging over crime and solutions, I would like to offer a “lesser” example of effective crime control. I lived in […]

Two Reports on Technology Needs Advances in technology can improve the safety and effectiveness of the criminal justice system, especially for law enforcement agencies. To support agencies’ using new technology, the Department of Justice supports a broad research portfolio to ensure technology is efficient, adequate and accessible. Two new publications — produced by the RAND […]

Chief Lawrence Battiste of the Mobile Police Department in Alabama sadly reports the death of Officer Justin Billa. Officer Billa was shot and killed as he and another officer attempted to contact and apprehend a murder suspect. Officers received a call of a woman lying in the street. They determined the victim had been murdered... […]

The Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles yesterday unanimously recommended clemency for Thomas Bartlett Whitaker, the first time in a decade the BPP has recommended against a death sentence. Whitaker orchestrated the murder of his family and his father, the only surviving victim, has been campaigning to save him from the death chamber. I mention […]

Calling illegal-gun trafficking “contagious,” a Chicago researcher says that despite his city's strict gun control, someone who wants to use a weapon to commit a crime can easily obtain one using social media or other networks on the underground market.

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam (R) is a national leader in leveraging evidence-based policies to sustain the state’s strong fiscal position, foster economic growth, and improve government efficiency. Over the governor’s seven years in office, he has created jobs, tripled Tennessee’s rainy day fund, decreased the state’s debt, and invested in education. This year, Gov....

States send less than half as many youth to residential facilities as they did in the late 1990s, but new data from the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention show that many juveniles in out-of-home placements were not confined for serious and violent crimes. In 2015, 23 percent of youth in […]

After peaking in 2008, the nation’s imprisonment rate fell 11 percent over eight years, reaching its lowest level since 1997, according to an analysis of new federal statistics by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Thousands of communities and families across the country are still reeling from 2017—one of the most destructive and expensive years on record for natural disasters. Coastal and inland floods inundated a broad swath of the country—from California to Texas and Missouri to Florida—damaging homes, roads, and bridges, and closing many institutions, including schools.

This ongoing, occasional series features interviews with a variety of influential leaders who discuss how they became involved in criminal justice reform, how their views have evolved—sometimes in unexpected ways—and what’s needed to sustain progress.

The courts have found that the Met failed in its civic duty to serve victims of a heinous crime. As a society we will have to confront the role of the victim in the post-sentencing process tooThere is no doubt that the Metropolitan police committed terrible errors in their handling the case of John Worboys, […]

An off-duty Prince George’s County police officer was shot and killed Wednesday morning while helping a woman next door in an incident of domestic violence, the department’s police chief said. Cpl. Mujahid Ramzziddin, a 14-year veteran of the department, was fatally shot by a man with a shotgun...

Democrats are poised to reject three Republican bills to loosen restrictions on guns Wednesday as the national debate about firearms following last week’s high school shooting in south Florida has forcefully made its way into Colorado and the state legislature.

Each case demonstrates how the tools used to fight crime and measure crime trends in the United States are outdated. Even as certain kinds of crimes are declining, others are increasing — yet because so many occur online and have no geographic borders ...

The Dunwoody Police Department is currently looking for Laverne Harold Squires, age 79, a Dunwoody Resident. Squires is suffering from Alzheimers. He was last seen leaving his residence at approximately 4:30PM on Friday. He left in ...